Sidetrip Home for Fun and FOOD

There were no plans for this trip, but things fell together quite nicely and we made a quick getaway home. Two separate nights in Manila bookended a three night, four-day trip to the beautiful Bohol - which is now officially my favourite place in the Philippines. The first night we consolidated families and had dinner at the always delicious CAFE BOLA - the brainchild of cuisinartiste Gaita Fores, the little bistro specialises in Pinoy comfort food. And a comfort it was, indeed.

I gave up my usual Ceaser salad with bagoong balayan and went for two items on the specials board: Lechon Kawali and Kang Kong salad - a sparkling medley of crispy roasted pork bellies atop freshly steamed morning glory, onions and tomatoes, lightly tossed with garlic-laced vinegar. But I didn't stop there. I also ordered something the chef christened Fiesta rice - a cake of fried garlic rice topped with equal rows of chopped salted egg, smoked tinapa, tomatoes and chicharon. No surprise, every bite was heavenly.

The next morning, we hopped aboard Cebu Pacific, which was surprisingly painless and wonderfully on time and flew to Bohol. The first day was easy - just a day spent on the beach - with both meals had at various restaurants on the Alona cove strip. We spent the afternoon snacking on the sweetest lanzones imaginable - all the while digging our toes in the stand and viewing star fish. Dinner was at a turo turo - where friends V and C pointed at various things we wanted grilled - pork barbecue, roaste pork, and squid - which we also had cooked in inky adobo style. And the veggie dish was fresh seaweed!

Second day was touristic - the blood compact first, and then the marvelous chocolate hills of Bohol. I told K and C that the hills were actually alien pods that will hatch in the future and the Philippines will be the first alien colony. From the hills, we drove to the Loboc River and had lunch on the riverboat - and after that, the tarsiers, which we fed with beetles. The final stop was at the marvellous Bee Farm - but rather than take the bee tour, we contented ourselves with buying foodstuff from the bee shop. Honeyed peanut sticks, honeyed chocolate covered polvoron (it gives polvoron a delightfully irresistible edge) and my find of the day: Tableya dark chocolate honey spread - like nutella - but oh so much more. I bought not just one but two jars!

Dinner was a birthday party for little V at the Amorita resort where we stayed - and here, the food was amazing...I went totally pinoy with chicken-pork adobo - stealing a bit of K's sinigang na baka. The rest of the dinner party had the array of pasta dishes - alio olio, bolognaise pesto and fettucini carbonara - all more than competent. And for dessert - chocolate cake!

The following day, we rose at the crack of dawn to take a banca out to open sea to chase the dolphins. On realising that we weren't going to be in for breakfast, I ordered packed sandwiches to take on the boat with us - scrambled egg and bacon on toast with a dollop of mayonaise. The dolphins were truly amazing - and from there we went to the marine sanctuary at Balincasag island and had the best snorkellig experience. We were on the precipice of a coral reef, after all. So the sights were spectacular - the aggressive clown fish, the anemone, exquisite Angel fish, and below, schools and schools of some kind of flounder.

For lunch, we went to the Genesis Diving Centre Pizza House for delectable thin crust pizzas topped with salami, olives and onions - but not before M and I had massages on the beach, upon landing from the banca trip. As the children built their sand cities, we chatted and while snacking again on lanzones, finally ending up at sunset in the Amorita's infinity pool.

The grand finale meal was at the fabulous Ananyana resort - just 20 minutes away - and it was a fine dining extravaganza - M had pork ribs, T had a wonderful chicken dish, C had grilled swordfish - I stuck to pinoy and had the grilled bangus with mango salad - every morsel of which was sweet and tasty. Dessert? Chocnut ice cream!

On that last morning, after a buffet breakfast that included fried danggit, longanisa, rice, tomatoes, salted egg and champorado - plus hot tableya chocolate, we had a final bathe in the calm pool like waters of Alona beach - and then it was time to leave.

But the eating was not over. We met up with S quite fittingly at Shakey's - and had garlic and cheese thin crust pizza as well as manager's choice and chicken and mojos and sarsi. Then met with C and her brood and had a long catch up over dinner at the inimitable Via Mare! Binagoongan Baboy, lumpiang sariwa, sinigang and bibingka - plus guinumis for dessert!

Back in Singapore, I am now in the midst of detoxing for all the apparent and not so apparent reasons...but hey, every bite was worth it. I come from a wonderful country.

The Accidental Book Buyer and Multi-tasking Reader

...Unfortunately, when you go out on errands, the bookstores beckon and are just too tempting for words. For words...while ostensibly shopping for a birthday gifts for my sisters, I picked up:

With Bold Knife And Fork by MFK Fisher, the late food critic for the New Yorker.

Wallflower at The Orgy by Nora Ephron who I just saw on Oprah talking about the perils and triumphs of ageing.

Terrorist by my all-time favourite John Updike. Usually, I favour his short fiction, but I started this novel and got past the third page...so I picked it up.

And I still haven't finished Michel Faber's The Apple which is both pleasing and dismaying. His stories of whories makes me feel that my very recent and yet unpublished "Recollections of an Older Bride" is somewhat redundant. Sigh. I am halfway through the Smiley book on the novel - Gigigaga, go for it - it's fun as fun but willl also just get you out there buying more books. And who has the room?

So much to read, who has time to write?

Back in the heat of it

The trick to managing the absence of structured hours and a formal office lies in rising early.

After three days of sleeping in till the shameful hour of nine am ( I don't count getting up at ten to 7 for five minutes to say goodbye to the kids before they go on the school bus), I managed to get up with the kids and even have breakfast with them. After which, I checked emails, prepared snail mail and headed out the door for exercise, errands and a hodge podge of meetings.

Managed to take two yoga classes. One was a restorative yoga class which was a bit too gentle for my taste, foolishly causing me to feel myself equal to a HOT 1 class - that's 90 minutes in a heated room! Thanks to a new instructor, I was able to modify and adjust and as Burt Bacharach would say, make it easy on myself. I wouldn't have been able to that with H or J. It felt good, for sure, but it was rather dismaying to see that I've lost quite a bit of my yogabilities.

That's what stopping for eight months will do, I guess.

Big discoveries and small triumphs

The big one for the week is the new Jacob Ballas Children's Park at the Botanic Gardens. What a great play place for kids aged 0-13. We went for the second time today. I fetched the kids from school, right in time to see C in prime soccer play. I also had the chance to touch base with the mom of K's best friend at school, which was really nice. We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - before you misunderstand, I mean two separate sandwiches, one peanut butter for C who eschews the classic combination and jelly solo for K who, believe it or not, does not like peanut butter, not even in chocolate. We went into the maze, into the sandbox playground and up into the tree house. We also did the bridge and the life-size nature puzzles. I must admit the kids are a little older for this park which I would say is perfect for ages 3-6, but they love it just the same. The other nice thing is right across the way is our track - so from there, we can quite easily go for a run or shoot some hoops for so long as we remember to bring the ball.

The small triumph is that my advice to C paid off. He's been going through tough times at school, much of it, it seems to me, is due to his intense desire to be liked by his peers. The result is he tries too hard and likely puts them off. It is something I understand and recognise all too well; it doesn't take much for me to flash myself back to third grade which was a constant tug-of-war of gal pals. I told him to change his tack - to withdraw and try out the people he doesn't know that well or even people he doesn't think he likes. I suggested he try going on his own more so he will discover that he enjoys his own company. I told him that when others see that he enjoys his own company, they will start seeking it - because he is fun to be with.

"You think that will work?" He asked, doubtful.

I told him to try it and see. And what do you know...it did. When he came over to me this afternoon, there was a little fellow was tagging after him who piped up to me, "C played a really good game! Good game C! I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" My son said, "See you tomorrow," and then grinned at me.

I am letting myself feel pretty good about that.

Tough Love

After two weeks of working at home - I've vowed not to say I'm not working, because what I'm doing? mothering while fitting in cash jobs and fiction is work - I'm rediscovering why I have worked at job these past few years.

It's because being a mother at home is the hardest job at all. It is. I always knew that cognitively but here I am facing it as a day-to-day reality, and to say that it is a challenge is putting it oh so very mildly. There is great satisfaction in getting dressed and leaving the house and having a day that's bisected neatly into morning, lunch hour, afternoon, coffee break and so on. A job gives you structure and everything fits nicely into slots. But mothering?

Mothering has no structure and my personality demands it while simultaneously not knowing how to create it. I know how to advise a junior writer and make suggestions about an article. I know how to collaborate with a graphic designer on a layout. What I don't know how to do is tell my daughter how not to get aggravated by my son when they are playing a game, even though he can be intensely aggravating. I don't know how to reprimand my children in a positive way so they get the lesson I am trying to impart without the anger and irritation. And I don't know how not to get worked up nor how not to lose my temper - worse, I don't know how to remember in time how to hold my tongue before seeing too late how a sharp reprimand has such a negative impact. Forget every day being a learning experience - every hour is.

Working at a job with defined skills was an easy escape. These days, I am confronted by the reality of not just having to raise my children, I am also having to raise myself. It takes a lot of love - and it's not romantic or easy. It's hard and steely bracing - even when it needs to be soft and yielding and understanding. Here it is, what I've been escaping - tough love and a job that I not only have to do, I have to remember I want to do because it will not just pay off in the long run, it will pay off with every hour and every day that passes.

On Page 1

I have a discount card for Kinokuniya and for Border's and for a long time, here in Singapore, that would pretty much cover it. But now there's Page One at Vivo City - and for some reason, it has all the books I want. Last Sunday, I stopped resisting the pull and gave in. I bought Jane Smiley's 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Am on the second chapter and it's just wonderful stuff. In the midst of it, I decided. It's time to stop looking at the novel. And start writing it.

On tasting carrots for the first time

after being prodded incessantly, my son said, grudgingly, "It has possibilities."

Best Press We've Had In A While

"Manila is a cool city."
- Quentin Tarantino in Manila for his new movie Dead Proof premiere

The Life of A Temp

I used to temp in the greatest city of all - the big Apple. It was the summer of 1991 - and all I had was one pair of hush puppies that I wore everday, to every job. I had one suit - a navy Auggie Cordero and one pair of black slacks. In the span of two and a half month, I worked at three different buildings. My first temp job was for a division at HBO in the HBO building, right by Bryant Park on 6th Avenue. That was just three days. Then I worked for a whole week at Saks on Fifth Avenue, in the marketing department. The last stint was something I was very thankful for because the personnel agency said they wanted someone for the rest of the summer, which meant that I wouldn't have to go traipsing around the city for anymore jobs. It was an assistant job for the Japanese company, ANA Hotels, which was on the third floor of one of the towers of the fabulous Rockerfeller Center. There were only four of us in the office, and I was in charge of taking reservations for the different hotels in Asia. It was a nice easy job, and in between, I wrote stories for the second year of my fiction program in Bowling Green. It was a glorious summer, and apart from the delights of the city, the best part was walking into an office - doing a job - and just like that... walking out again.

Here I am 18 years later - and it's time to temp again. Today I worked at one of the other publishing companies located in a building in Singapore I had never been in before. It was nice, but it wasn't the Rockerfeller Centre. The best thing?

Being able to walk in...and just like that, walking out.

My new favourites... H's....

...
City Hong Kong
It's big and bustling and busy and yet still so visitor-friendly. It's a great city for walking and exploring, shopping and (need I say it?)eating.
Restaurant Hu Tong, One Peking Road, Kowloon
Yum yum yum. First of all there's the view of the Hong Kong island skyline. And just as first of all - the food itself - work of culinary art. The crispy lamb - words fail me. And the way the sauce adds new dimension, further enhanced by finely minced garlic. The mere memory makes my mouth water. Fearing we would go overboard, we restricted ourselves to veggie dishes - the string beans in minced pork - always a hit. But the big surprise was the asparagus with salted fish, mainly because the salted fishes were not just tiny flakes but whole fish laid on a bed of bright green perfectly cooked asparagus. And then there was dessert - coconut ice cream with toasted coconut plus pear and white fungi...the a fitting end to a meal that can only be described as perfection.
Store H&M
It is a wonderful place to rummage through and not only do you find something you want every other minute - you find it in your size and at worth-it prices, too. PLUS - there's a cool kiddie section. I'm still a fan of Giordano Ladies - but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for H&M and am so glad it's in Hong Kong.

When do we go back to Hong Kong, that's my question...

Take 4

It's funny how my life seems to be cyclical. Circumstances have presented themselves in ample amounts so as to be enough to persuade me that the freelance life is once again the way to go. It feels different though this time. This time feels more right than it has before. Time will tell.

Brothers and Sisters

It's always interesting to watch a new TV drama series. L and M gave me Brothers & Sisters awhile back and I just started it. Unfortunately, Calista Flockhart still irritates me no end. I can't believe that a decade ago I was quite infatuated by her. Not only that, the plot - outwardly normal happy family besieged by dysfunction - is not especially unexpected. In fact,it's rather banal.But but but - two episodes in, I continue to watch. If only for Sally Field who plays the mother and who has lovely scenes. If only the writing improves and the plots become more inventive. We shall see.

The decision

She is made.

Plan

We are approaching that time when a decision has to be made. Only when you know what you want can you make it happen. So first things first. What do you want?

In another HDB flat in Toa Payoh

...you can spend a pleasant day with colleagues doing a shoot - that is, when you work at a magazine. As someone who began working in the industry at the text stage as opposed to the ground level - sourcing, styling, products, photography stage - I find this completely new and somewhat therapeutic. Don't get me wrong. I was always aware that shoots took place in theory, but was very rarely involved in them. It is funny to be starting now. Here such questions are posed as - "how should we shoot this little vial of lip balm?" Or "How can we make this cheesy packaging look somewhat better?". Of course, there is a photographer who will hopefully be as cheery, good-natured and companionable as the one we are working with today. Hopefully, you will be spending the time with colleagues whose company you enjoy or even who you genuinely like as individuals. And the goal is that you get as many of the pictures you need done and done well. It is interesting in that it's a break from the humdrum atmosphere of the office, you get to dress down and be relaxed yet still in "work mode" and with any luck, there will be good gossip and pizza. There are a lot worse ways to spend a working day.

And at the end of it - you see lovely pictures - which are of course, the heart and soul of this business. Worth a thousand words.

Oh where oh where

has this weekend gone? A lot of naps - thank goodness. A return to choir. Friday night dinner, ice cream and a bookstore browse. Ferrying kiddies to birthday parties. Lunch by the river. Household weeding and an early evening bite at the mall where T and I successfully resisted a Calvin Klein sale - and went for Japgelato instead. Today, it was all about sticking together in gray and rainy weather (Sorry Sash...but if it's any consolation, it's not like I would have bought anything either). What lies ahead? Decisions. That, and some good old fashioned exercise....

In a 3rd floor flat of an HDB complex in Serangoon

...at the hands of a Chinese woman who spoke as much English as I speak Mandarin, I had a manual lyphatic drainage massage, ear candling with Chinese herbs combined with a facial massage and naval candling combined with more tummy toxin drainage massage. Basically, I had to research post-treatment to even be able to list down what I had.

It was awesome.

First day

K and C have started school and they're happy as campers. Despite a very long day that began at 7am end had them reaching home by 5:30 (that's longer than some people's working day and they didn't even get the two hour lunch!) they were highly upbeat.

K said, with judicious equanimity, that it was "more fun" than her old school. C said it was..."the best day of my life."

Our hope is that this new environment with its diverse student body and its equally diverse teaching body combined with its significantly lower class-to-teacher ratios will only be good them, helping them to learn all they can learn, discover their full potentials and start the process of becoming the best versions of themselves.

While it was a tough decision to make, what with the various implications, not the least of which is financial - it feels today, the very first day, that we made the right one.

Not at all surprising

Just skimmed through a news item on Yahoo. There's apparently scientific proof that two species of human beings existed on this earth at the same time - one being more evolved and the other much less so.

Now why on earth should this surprise anyone, may I ask? I'm almost positive this continues to this day. It would account for quite a lot, I think.

Rediscovering Jean Webster

What is it about me these days that I am constantly seeking solace, comfort and pleasure in the books of my youth. Using K as a willing pretext, I've been rekindling the flame I had with Lucy Maud Montgomery and her Anne that too few young girls are reading these days, perhaps because we all live in such complicated times. Anne is too quaint and Green Gables is too old fashioned and Montgomery's prose will likely prove too flowery at for the modern day gal. Get to the point, I imagine them saying. Strangely, K is surprisingly compliant and even receptive - I guess reading aloud helps - I'll warrant I have winning diction.

My rally to modern women today is to acquaint themselves with the pleasures of LM Montgomery and discover the Anne books and the copious joys within. Even if it were just for the first three - Gables, Avonlea and Island.

But I digress. We were talking about Jean Webster.

Browsing in a Bangkok Kinokuniya, I chanced upon a new edition of Webster's Daddy Long Legs which is accompanied by another epistolary novel I was not even aware she had written: a much lesser known tome called Dear Enemy which spins off a Daddy Long Legs character in much the same way Frazier was spun off from Cheers or Lou Grant was spun off from Mary Tyler Moore Show. And it is another epistolary romance. Since my own aborted novel was partially epistolary - I take great interest in the re-reading of this and the first reading of the new. I felt like I had landed a goldmine, some buried treasure that I had not even known existed. Think for awhile what it would be like to see Starwars and go away never knowing that the sequels were even made.

The sheer pleasure of the fact alone is enough to make a girl giddy.

These novels were written in 1912 and 1914. Webster has wonderful turns of phrase and there is a richness and a texture in her language that is inextricably tied to the story she relates. It's brilliant. Brilliant and enviable.